


Lady of the Night

by redsnake05



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: F/F, Intoxication, Rites of Passage, Ritual Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-16
Updated: 2014-04-16
Packaged: 2018-01-19 14:49:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1473721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redsnake05/pseuds/redsnake05
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aravis completes the rite of those who leave Zardeenah's service, but it's different to what she might have expected. Zardeenah finds a way to offer strength to those in a position of weakness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lady of the Night

In the void, before Time and Space, the Emperor-over-Sea worked the Deep Magic, and his children watched him work. There was no light, no movement, no touch, just the void. Then the sound, a great, scraping sound of a heavy door dragging open, and one of his children bounded forth into the darkness the Deep Magic had fashioned. The Emperor's other children followed more slowly, and it was too late for them; the first child had lifted his voice to what would be the sky, and it was his music that would shape this world. 

There are certain things that cannot be changed. The Deep Magic controls the very base of the world, and no song can touch that. They have their own music, deep, sonorous and slow. One can listen to it, but it is not the sort of song that takes a harmony. It cannot be shaped, even by the voices of the Emperor's children. The first child to raise their voice is the one to choose the rest of the music, and the others exist only for such harmony as they can and will provide. Some are better at this than others.

The first one sang of a sky, and a sky came into being above him. He sang of cold people of fire, and they appeared in the sky, rapidly growing into the ball of gas that a star is made of. The first one sang of light, and it appeared. His voice cloaked the bones of the Deep Magic with grass and tall trees, smothering them in green, smothering them in life. He sang of himself, and his flanks grew golden and his claws grew sharp.

The children of the Emperor had known, of course, as soon as the door opened, that there was something foreign waiting for them in this new world. Somehow, as the Deep Magic settled, and Time began, in the stillness between that and the First Song, the world had already been invaded. 

The first one, in response, sang a world for a Man to be King of, perhaps thinking this was the only way to drive out invasion. A strong King, after all, must guard those he possesses, and will stand firm against those who encroach on his dignities. The second one, following, compressed her lips as she listened. She knew she had only the spaces of his song to work in, so she listened carefully to both what he said and what he did not. As the first sang of the King and the Man, she thought about the gaps that this left in the lives of those not Kings or Men.

All know the rest of the story: Aslan sang into being a world full of magic and awareness, and his stories are told everywhere in that world. He was the first child of the Emperor to raise his voice in the darkness. The second, though, lingered also, but few tell of her stories.

As Aslan sang and made the world, she watched and waited and listened. She heard him sing the Animals, she heard him sing the spirits of the Wood and the Water. She heard him make this world into one for a Man to be King of. She heard the gaps he left; there was no limit to the dominion of Man, for he assumed that it would always be a land of Animals and Trees and Water. She shook her head. There was no limit to the dominion of Man, for Aslan could not contemplate Man and Woman as separate from one another. She shook her head again and wondered what strength she would find to offer in this world.

When Aslan called Helen, the second child watched even more closely. She was regal indeed, under her shyness and her apron, and she would make a fine Queen. The second child watched and waited and listened to all that was said and planned and started and laid out for the future, hearing both what Aslan said and what he did not say.

As Darkness fell again, the first night, she stood high under the stars and began her own song. She sang of Woman, of growth and learning, of striving and struggle, of planning and endings. She sang of the secrets that Women would keep, of the things only they would need to know. She sang of love and death and children, and the dark blood and dark night that would be her domain. She sang and she shaped that part of the world that was left to her, and she shaped herself.

As dawn streaked the sky, she heard his footfall behind her. 

"Lady of Night," said Aslan. "I heard your song."

"As I heard yours, Lion."

"This is my world," he said.

"You grow too possessive, brother. You know the laws of our father, and I know what I have a right to. I have merely filled in some gaps you left, no more and no less."

"I shall not suffer rivalry," he said, shaking his mane.

"I offer not rivalry," she replied, "though you know there are other of our kin who will not be so patient with your jealous hold on this new world."

"I shall deal with them," he said. "They shall not approach my children any more than you may."

"Soon enough, one will call out for me, and I shall aid her. You cannot stop me. I am Zardeenah, Lady of the Unconscious Night, and also Zaleetha, Lady of the Striving Night, and also Zaartheneh, Lady of the Long Night." She smiled at the threefold nature of herself, arms raised to the sky, and embracing the world, and pressing into the earth. She was every woman in that moment.

Aslan looked at her long and hard, from the top of her bare dark head to her bare toes, and said nothing. She could feel his anger, sprung from his grasping love of this world, the world he considered his alone. She felt sorrow for him. Many were the worlds where she had sung first, and never had she grudged him his share of that creation, yet he strove to keep her from this. Eventually, he turned away with a swish of his tail.

"So be it, Lady of the Shadows." He stalked down the hill in the dawn light and she faded away in the sun to wait for her moment to arrive. 

>>>>

Aravis looked round the clearing, checking that she had all that she needed. The fire burned steadily, and plenty of wood was stacked to the side. The bunches of herbs, bound with twine in the traditional knots, waited to add their intoxication to the smoke. The table was laid with plate and goblet and flagon, and the tent was pitched behind it. Turning, she looked to the west, where the faintest streaks of red and gold still marbled the sky. Soon, it would be dark, and she would begin the Rite.

Sighing, she crossed the springy green grass, now turned almost grey in the evening shadows, and sat next to the fire. She wasn't quite sure what she was doing here. In Calormene, this Rite was always done with someone else to help, and Aravis wasn't certain that she had the food right, or that she knew the correct words to say. She wasn't even sure that she still believed in Zardeenah, not after living so long in the houses of the Lion. She picked at the grass at her feet and thought about Cor, and the prospect of married life, and about how she was both excited and nervous at the prospect, and some other feelings too, ones she couldn't admit, even now. She knew it was the nerves that had sent her out here, though, into the dark. She needed to be herself for a little while, even if she wasn't sure who that was anymore.

Aravis had spent the long years of her childhood dreaming of fame and glory in the increasingly constricted house of her father. She'd been sure of who she was then, though now she knew that her heroic future would have have happened. She saw now that it hadn't just been her stepmother's scheming and her father's weakness that had conspired against her. Eventually, there would have been a marriage arranged, whether she wanted it or not, and all her dreams of fame and glory would have been worthless.

Anvard was difficult too, and she still wasn't entirely sure she belonged here either. Everyone was kind here, and she loved Cor, and she'd even met Aslan. He made something inside her become very still, though she was never sure, after he'd gone, if she liked the feeling or not. She was not much made for being still and being grateful.

She clasped her hands together and stared into the fire until it was completely dark. The flames jumped and danced, and a bed of embers grew underneath. She prodded it, adding more wood and raking out some coals to the side. The first bundle of herbs hit the coals with a sizzle, the tender green leaves shriveling and the twine charring black as the sweet, scorching smoke rolled off in a wave. Aravis blinked and sneezed. When she wiped her eyes and looked up, a tall, dark figure waited for her.

"Lady of the Night," she breathed, mind scrambling to make sense of her arrival. She remembered her manners in a rush and shifted onto her knees, head bowed. "Welcome to my humble hospitality, Lady." She risked a glance up at Zardeenah. She seemed very tall, with dark hair down her back, but bare toes peeking out the bottom of her robes.

"Rise, child," said Zardeenah. Aravis climbed to her feet and stood, still half-disbelieving, waiting for Zardeenah to say something. Zardeenah came closer to the fire and seated herself on a convenient log. Aravis remembered her manners again and brought forth a flagon and a goblet. Zardeenah accepted the wine with a smile.

"It has been a long time since I have had wine from the Northern vineyards," she said. "Few of my daughters can offer it to me." She gestured Aravis to a seat next to her. Aravis sank obediently down, coughing on a rogue wisp of smoke. She wondered if the smoke was making her head spin and her eyes play tricks on her. Earlier today, she would have said she wasn't sure that Zardeenah was even real. Looking up, she saw Zardeenah's eyes on her, dark and shrewd, and she felt her cheeks flush. She was to marry tomorrow, to be a Princess in this land, a land of the Lion, yet here was the Lady of her Calormene past here in front of her, and the sharp feeling of dislocation was as strong as ever. Zardeenah smiled like she knew what Aravis was thinking.

"Ordinarily," said Zardeenah, "you would have company at this Rite. In default of anyone else, I have come forth to aid you to leave my service."

"Lady, I have not been a good servant," said Aravis. She found Zardeenah's eyes uncomfortably penetrating, like Aslan's eyes, like all her thoughts were transparent.

"It is hard to serve me in the halls of the Lion," Zardeenah said. "Yet we are not enemies, Aslan and I, and you have no need to fight a battle against yourself."

"It is not that," said Aravis, but then stopped. She couldn't explain, even to herself, what exactly she was looking for. Zardeenah smiled like she understood exactly.

"You spent your childhood dreaming of escape, and then you actually did. A girl, a boy, and a pair of Talking Horses, racing across the desert! A mad story, indeed. And you got here and… stopped escaping. Stopped dreaming."

"I shouldn't want to escape," muttered Aravis. "I am lucky."

"Indeed, you are lucky. And you would have been lucky, had you married Ahoshta and then had him quietly killed. There are many ways for you to be lucky, but this is the one you have, by the Song of the Lion."

Aravis said nothing. She could not reply. She felt trapped, sometimes, in Anvard, but did not want to admit it. She had run to the North, chasing the dream of a world where women were not forced into distasteful marriages but were free to choose. What she'd found was something more complicated, where free choice in a marriage was tangled up with other choices, some more coercive than others. She still dreamed, sometimes, of escape. She wondered, uneasily, what that said about her, when she had so much of what she had once considered freedom.

"My mother told me that you were the Lady of freedom in captivity, who helped women find ways to make space for themselves. I thought I didn't need you. I wish I had listened to my mother." Aravis took a deep breath of the sweet smoke and looked down at her hands, folded tightly in her lap. She continued, "She told me that you protected maidens from attack when girls, and gave women the tools to make their own satisfaction as women, but she didn't know what you gave crones, for it was a secret she would only find out if she made it to your third rite. She told me stories of you, and I wish I had listened."

"Your mother was truly one of my daughters," said Zardeenah. She smiled in the flickering light. "She struggled with the world of men. Their noise, their expectations and extravagance, and their calm assumption of right. There is nothing I can do about that, for this is a Land for a Man to be King of."

"I will be a Queen," said Aravis. She felt uneasy just saying it. 

"You will," said Zardeenah. "Yet you still feel trapped."

Aravis nodded. Here, then, was the root of her disquiet. She wanted more than just a choice amongst limited choices. She wanted the impossible: to be free.

"I cannot give you freedom in that sense," said Zardeenah, as if she had read Aravis's mind.

"I would stay in your service, Lady," said Aravis. "I would have the tools to make my own satisfaction."

"Then prepare the wine and lay another bundle of herbs on the fire," said Zardeenah.

Aravis mixed the traditional herbs together and poured the wine into the kettle to heat slowly. Another bundle of herbs went into the fire, and smoke poured off. It went straight to Aravis's head, making her eyes water and her hands feel soft and clumsy. She poured the wine into two goblets and knelt before Zardeenah, offering both.

"Drink, daughter," said Zardeenah. Aravis did, tasting sweet and bitter together on her tongue. The wine was thick, almost sticky, and when she wiped her lips it left a smear on her fingers, nearly black. Zardeenah drank hers, and Aravis couldn't look away from the press of her white fingers against the gold. Zardeenah put the cup down and leaned forward, curling those same fingers under Aravis's chin and tilting her face up so she could press a kiss on her lips.

This kiss was insistent, with a hint of wildness that Aravis, accustomed to Cor's slightly reverent passion, had never encountered. She drew breath and Zardeenah used the moment to deepen the kiss. 

The smoke and the wine had started making her head spin; the kiss finished her intoxication. She kissed Zardeenah back, shuffling closer on her knees as Zardeenah's fingers ranged over her hair, her shoulders, down her back. She felt consumed by her passion, caught up in the wildness and freedom of the moment. Zardeenah's hands pulled her closer and Aravis went willingly. She was losing herself, and she had never felt so free. It seemed like Zardeenah pressed secrets into her skin directly, letting them sink into her bloodstream with the herbs and the smoke. 

>>>>

Zaleetha left Aravis sleeping on the bedroll in the tent and stepped out under the stars. She stretched, feeling her heavier body respond to the movement. She pulled her tunic on over her head, easing back into the garment and enjoying the lassitude of her limbs. The last of the herbs still smouldered on the fire and she smiled at the sweet, heavy scent. It was always the scent of women, the scent of the night. 

"A beautiful night, brother," she said, not turning her head. Aslan moved out of the shadows of the trees and moved closer to the fire. Zaleetha threw another log onto the embers and stirred them up with a branch.

"My children do not need you," he said.

"No, indeed they do not," she replied. "I am unnecessary, but you must not think that causes me any concern."

"I should say, my children do not want you."

"Now, that is demonstrably untrue," Zaleetha replied. "A Land for a Man to be King of! I am not wanted by Men, true, but Women want me in their lives, and I give them something you didn't bother to sing of."

"And what is that?"

"You know what I give them," she said. "Space. Freedom inside their heads. Pleasure."

Aslan growled at the last word and Zaleetha laughed. She knew that the pleasure of the body was the least of the gifts she gave, but the one that made Aslan frown the most. It amused her to see his face.

"Once I was sorry for you, brother. Sorry that you were too selfish to share this world. Now I look on how it has gone, and I am sorry for you no longer. You have done a great disservice to half your so-called children. And I shall be there, to guide and care for my daughters, in the scraps of the world you left me. Pleasure is necessary for all creatures."

Aslan did not reply, merely turning as if to leave. "Leave if you will, Lion of the Emperor. Consider, though, that there are many ways to fight. Perhaps, in your haste to stamp your mark on this world, you did not choose the best one."

"What do you know of the long struggle with the Witch?" he asked.

"What do you know of the long struggles of my daughters?" she replied. "For I know more than you about finding strength from a place of weakness."

Then he was gone in the darkness and Zaleetha, Lady of the Striving Night, remained, sitting beside the fire and singing a song of women, with her cloak around her and her daughter sleeping peacefully, ready to find herself once more. She was content.


End file.
